4. 1 Overview of the marketing strategy planning process Customers Needs and other Segmenting Dimensions Company Objectives & Resources Competitors Current & Prospective S. W. O. T. wdp Target Market Product Place Promotion Price External Market Environment Technological Political & Legal Social & Cultural Economic Segmentation & Targeting Differentiation & Positioning Narrowing down to focused strategy with quantitative and qualitative screening criteria Exhibit 21-1 21-4
6. Forecasting Market Potential and Sales 21-6 Trend Extension Leading Series Indices Sales Forecast Key Terms and Concepts in Forecasting Factor Method Time Series Market Potential Jury of Executive Opinion
7. Straight Line Trend Projection A trend extension simply extends past experience into the future. When factors influencing sales are predictable, this can be useful. A weakness in this method though is that conditions tend to change more often than they stay the same. Exhibit 21-4 21-7 Years Dollars 0 Actual sales Trend
8. Spreadsheet “What If” Questions A spreadsheet can be used to compare estimated sales, costs, and profits for “reasonable” alternative marketing mixes. Manipulation of any element of the mix allows for quick assessment of likely outcomes. Exhibit 21-7 21-8
10. Key Terms S.W.O.T. Analysis Market Potential Sales Forecast Trend Extension Factor Method Factor Time Series Leading Series Indices Jury of Executive Opinion Spreadsheet Analysis Exporting Licensing Contract Manufacturing Management Contracting Joint Venturing Wholly Owned Subsidiary Multinational Corporations 21-10
Editor's Notes
Summary Overview Strategy planning is complex, but is guided by basic principles. Among these is the marketing concept that emphasizes the concentration of all a firm’s activities into meeting the needs of its target markets -- at a profit. From a planning perspective it is useful to differentiate strategies, plans, and programs. Strategies Plans and Programs Marketing Strategy . The marketing strategy consists of a target market and a marketing mix. This is the “big picture” of what the firm will do in some target market. Teaching Tip: Strategy explains what and why of company marketing action. Marketing Plan . The marketing plan includes time-related details, including expected costs and revenues, for the marketing strategy. Teaching Tip: Plans answer the where , when , who , and how of company marketing action. Marketing Program . The marketing program is a combination of different marketing plans coordinated into an overall marketing effort by the responsible marketing manager. Blending the Four Ps . The individual decisions made for each of the four Ps is guided by the need to develop logical and coherent strategies, plans, and programs. Each P describes a separate function that requires managerial decision-making. But those decisions are not made in isolation. They affect and are affected by the decisions made for every other P. And the 4Ps in turn are developed in combination to support the marketing strategy. This slide relates to the material on pp. 595-596. See Transparency 18 and Overheads 18-19 and 226-227.
Summary Overview This summary overview of the marketing strategy planning process gives a big picture view of all of the topics discussed in the text. It was introduced early (in Chapter 3) before students knew very much about marketing. Now, when the revisit it, they should see that they have a structure for looking at marketing decision making AND also that they know that each of the “boxes” on this graph don’t represent a single decision but rather a number of strategy decisions that need to be made. The marketing strategy planning process It useful to use this to remind students that they have studied each of these topics in some depth: Customers: throughout the text, but especially chapter 5, 6, and 7 Company: especially chapters 2, 3, 19 and 20 Competitors and competitor analysis: chapter 4 Segmentation and positioning: especially chapter 3 External market environment: chapter 4 Product: chapters 9 and 10 Place: chapters 11, 12, and 13 Promotion: chapters 14, 15, and 16 Price: chapters 17 and 18 This slide relates to the material on pp. 596-597. However, it is also a review and recap of material introduced in Exhibit 3-1 (and related text discussion) Instructor’s Note: This slide corresponds to Exhibit 21-1 on p. 596 and Transparency 22. See also Overhead 21.
Summary Overview S.W.O.T. analysis identifies and lists the firm’s strengths and weaknesses and its opportunities and threats. A good S.W.O.T. analysis helps the manager focus on a strategy that takes advantage of opportunities and strengths while avoiding its weaknesses and threats. Strengths and weaknesses are internal to the company; opportunities and threats are external factors. S.W.O.T. Analysis Strengths . Strengths are those things a firm does well. It may be a process, a patent, or some other product-related activity. But it might also be extraordinary customer service, delivery, or channel support. Well developed strengths can lead to a distinct competitive advantage -- a way of doing business that distinguishes a firm from its competitors in some market-relevant way. Weaknesses . Weaknesses are areas where the firm performs some activities less-well than competitive firms. These are areas where the firm needs to improve -- or at least not compete head-to-head with better performing organizations. Discussion Note: Over the long-run, they may even be activities that match the competition but not the expectations for performance held by customers. Opportunities . Opportunities are events, conditions, or situations in the external environment that are particularly well-suited or attractive to the way a firm does business or is planning to do business. The firm does not control the existence of opportunities, but it tries to match its strengths to opportunities that emerge, are emerging, or will emerge within the planning period. Threats . Threats are events, conditions, or situations in the external environment that are NOT particularly well-suited or attractive to the way a firm does business or is planning to do business. Companies try to avoid threats or minimize their impact. This slide relates to the material on pp. 597-600. See also Transparency 22 and Overhead 21. Instructor’s Note: The lecture script provides extra-textual discussion material on S.W.O.T. for extended in-class discussion.
Summary Overview Several methods and techniques are used to identify how large a market might be and how well a company expects to do in a given market. Forecasting is part of all planning levels -- strategy, plans, and programs. Forecasting: Key Terms and Concepts Market Potential . This refers to what a whole market segment might buy. Sales Forecast . This is an estimate of how much an industry or firm hopes to sell to a market segment. Trend Extension . This extends past experience into the future. A key to successful use of trend extension is identifying the reasons sales vary. Note: See following slide. Factor Method . This tries to forecast sales by finding a relation between the company’s sales and some other factor or factors. A factor is a variable that shows the relation of some other variable to the item being forecast. Time Series . These are historical records of the fluctuations in economic variables. To the extent that some industries exhibit patterns of behavior over time, this tool can be very helpful to marketing managers engaged in strategy planning. Leading Series . This is a kind of time series that changes in the same direction of the series to be forecast, but ahead of it in time. In short, this provides an “early warning” of what is going to happen in the market before it actually begins. Indices . No single series has yet been discovered that leads large economic phenomenon like the GNP. Indices are statistical combinations of several time series. Jury of Executive Opinion . One of the oldest forecasting methods, this combines the opinions of experienced executives. Other opinion-based forecasts can be derived from the sales force or from consumer surveys, etc. This slide relates to the material on pp. 601-608. See also Overheads 228-231.
Notes Extending past behavior can miss important turning points. Ideally, when extending past sales behavior, we should decide why sales vary. This is the difficult and time-consuming part of sales forecasting. Usually we can gather a lot of data about the product or market--or about changes in the marketing environment. But unless we know the reason for past sales variations, it’s hard to predict in what direction--and by how much--sales will move. Once we know why sales vary, we can usually develop a specific forecast. The weakness of the trend extension method is that it assumes past conditions will continue unchanged into the future. However, in fact, the future isn’t always like the past. This slide relates to the material on pp. 602-603. Instructor’s Note: This slide corresponds to Exhibit 21-4 on p. 603 and Transparency 139. See also Transparency 140.
Notes Spreadsheet analysis speeds through calculations and marketing managers often use it to make that part of the planning job simpler and faster. With spreadsheet analysis, costs, sales, and other information related to a problem are organized into a data table--a spreadsheet--to show how changing the value of one or more of the numbers affects the other numbers. This is possible because the relationships among the variables are programmed in the computer software. The table in this slide was prepared using Excel, Microsoft’s widely used spreadsheet program. Spreadsheet analysis allows the marketing manager to evaluate what-if questions. The table in this slide involves a number of relationships. For example, price times total units equals sales revenue; and total revenue minus total cost equals total profit. If these relationships are programmed in the spreadsheet, a marketing manager can ask questions like: “What if I raise the price to $20.20 and still sell 7,000 units? What will happen to profit?” To get the answer, all the manager needs to do is type the new price in the spreadsheet and the program computes the new profit--$26,400. This slide relates to the material on pp. 608-610. Instructor’s Note: This slide corresponds to Exhibit 21-7 on p. 609 and Overhead 232. See also Overhead 234.
Summary Overview For many firms, expansion into international markets offers the best opportunities for growth, even survival. Even companies that are not planning to expand internationally should be aware of the basic kinds of international involvement because they may very well be competing against new competitors from abroad who will utilize one of these methods. Basic Kinds of International Involvement Exporting . This involves simply selling some of what the firm produces to foreign markets. Exporting is the lowest level of international involvement. Licensing . This involves selling the right to use some process, trademark, patent, or other right for a fee or royalty. The licensee takes most of the risk and knows the local market but the licensing firm does not have as much control over the marketing mix as under higher levels of involvement. Contract Manufacturing . This means turning over production to others while retaining the marketing process. This can ease implementation problems when entering new international markets. Management Contracting . This means the seller only provides management skills, while others own the production and distribution facilities. This is a relatively low-risk approach to international marketing as there is no investment in fixed facilities. Joint Venturing . This is a partnership between the firm expanding into an international market and a foreign firm. It is a big commitment of resources and is complicated by the need to resolve how each partner will share in the venture. Usually joint venturing is used when access to foreign markets is restricted by law, or when each of the companies involved has a distinctive asset that is needed for the venture's competitive success. Wholly Owned Subsidiaries . This is a full-fledged commitment to the foreign market where the company sets up a separate firm to do business in the host country. Multinational Corporations . More and more numerous, these companies have a direct investment in several countries and run their businesses depending on the choices available anywhere in the world. This slide relates to the material on pp. 616-618. See also Transparency 145 and Overheads 237-238.